Meatballs with snake beans

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 350 g minced meat, half and half
• 100 g beans, green snake beans (from an Asian store)
• 3 shallots, small red Thai
• 3 garlic cloves
• 3 stalks of lemongrass
• 4 kaffir lime leaves (magrood leaves)
• 1 bunch of coriander leaves
• 4 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 egg(s)
• 4 tbsp flour, tapioca flour (or other cornstarch)
• 1 tsp curry paste, red
• ½ tsp shrimp paste (gapi)
• 1 tsp spice paste (nahm prik paste), heaped
• 1 tsp palm sugar or brown cane sugar
• Oil for frying

Instructions

Working time approx. 30 minutes; Total time approx. 30 minutes

Cut the beans into very fine slices. Remove the central leaf stalk from the magrood leaves and cut into fine strips. Wash the coriander, shake dry, and roughly chop the leaves. Roughly chop only the lower, soft third of the lemongrass (use the rest for a soup, for example). Peel the garlic cloves and shallots. Blend the garlic, shallots, and lemongrass with the egg, tapioca flour, curry, shrimp, and nahm prik paste, fish sauce, and sugar in a blender until a fine paste forms. Thoroughly mix the minced meat with the paste. Knead in the beans, lemon leaves, and coriander. Form the mixture into small, not too thick balls about 5 cm in diameter. Heat the oil in a deep fryer or wok to 180 degrees Celsius. When frying in a wok, the oil is hot enough when small bubbles rise from the handle of a wooden spoon. Fry the meatballs in batches (no more than 3 at a time) for about 2 minutes. Remove, drain on kitchen paper, and keep warm until all the meatballs are cooked. Serve with sweet chili sauce.